My View For Awhile: Close Call Edition

As usual, my flight is delayed. It happens a lot at this airport. I’ll have to dash for my connection. Sigh.

UPDATE

I made it with about 5 minutes to spare. I hope I’ll have a seat open by me.

Meanwhile, I got into the first pages of this novel, about a terrorist attack on the Mall of America in my native place. That’s the Mall that famously protects everyone from nefarious neerdowells by posting the ‘no guns’ signs at the doors. Those signs are sure to keep out the bad guys. Honestly, I don’t even want to venture into a mall.

Speaking of MOA. I was up visiting ( yes I know its cold up there in the winter) and I stopped in MOA for the first time. I get back to my longtime family friends home only to see the news story about the threat. I was wondering about why MOA security guards were walking around in groups. I just figured that they were on break from a training class. Ah wrong on that one.

W.r.t., the “open seat”, I would consider it a blessing to have that seat (if it existed) available to me. (Although you might not – I’m not “small”.) But I’m sure we could have lengthy discussions – with all due deference to your ordained status, of course!

I wonder, if someone has a concealed carry permit for the state in which MOA is located (I believe that is Minnesota) does the MOA have the right to override what the state had granted and essentially negate the CCP? If an incident happened where a gunman were to start shooting or taking hostages etc. and someone with a CCP pulled out his or her firearm and stopped the gunman thereby saving lives of many shoppers, would he or she then be prosecuted by MOA for violating its policy?

This is coming from a gentleman who thinks spending his free time doing high-elevation (more than 5000 feet above sea-level) run-and-gunning with multiple targets is great exercise, who thinks that a copy of the qur’an makes a great long-distant target, and who owns multiple copies of “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu in different translations, some of them have Ancient Chinese commentary, so take what I’m about to write as however you will. . .

“Gun-Free Zones” (like restraining orders for that matter) are a joke.

And. . .

“Gun-Free School Zones” are EVIL, and every politician who voted for that law, or signed that law, and every judge who upheld that law in court, is going to have to answer for every child killed in every school shooting.

John Patrick, in MN, (land of 10,000 therapies, where everything not prohibited is mandatory), business may post one of the ‘No Firearms allowed’ signs. The specifics of the signs are written into the law, sizes, fonts etc. When I lived there, mostly I ignored them, though also mostly did not patronize those businesses anyway. (10,000 therapies.) A business owner can, upon learning someone is carrying a firearm in their business, ask them to leave. If the person refuses, it is a level 3 misdemeanor; get three of those and one can lose their permit. While the common description is ‘concealed carry permit’, in MN concealment is not required. I think concealed rather than open carry is preferable for many reasons, though in my garden on a busy street,( just up the road from Connie’s Creamy Cone Father Z), I made a point of being seen with hoe in hand and CZ on hip.
Furthermore, in MN, as my first permit class teacher said, you can only come to the aid of law enforcement, and “Someone to whom you would donate an organ”, i.e. wife, brother etc. The MN law also prescribes a “Duty to retreat”, and “Fear of death or serious bodily harm”. The people in MN are just looney enough that they might prosecute in the scenario you described. (The ‘skeered of guns’ people believe, I think unconsciously, that inanimate objects have volition, and effect behavior. ) However, it’s a very risky thing to draw ones weapon and open fire, though I believe explicit permission is given on hearing the two word Arabic curse that ends with “Ock-barr!”
Finally, I no longer live up the road from Connie’s, but in South Dakota. (We fled the utopia of MN in 2013 and moved to America; I like America better.) And here, it’s concealed carry only, and remarkably simple. We went to the county seat, filled out a simple form, paid $10, got our temporary permits right away, and the cards came in the mail a couple of weeks later. (The SD law says, among other things, “If any part of the firearm can be seen, it is not concealed.”) Did I say I liked America better…? Keep your powder dry and have lots of powder. “IHS” Viva Christo Rey! Viva Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe!

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